Film

American Gigolo

Name: American Gigolo
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Released: 1980
Cast: Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton, Héctor Elizondo, Nina van Pallandt, Bill Duke

Drama

A male escort in 1980s Los Angeles gets entangled in a murder investigation while navigating genuine emotional connection. Stylish, cool-blooded, and oddly tender—Schrader's direction wraps existential loneliness in impeccable fashion and Gere's charisma. For anyone drawn to morally complex protagonists and the particular melancholy of wealth.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow-burning 1980 Los Angeles portrait driven by mood, polished style, and Richard Gere's watchful cool more than by plot mechanics.

Skip it if you need brisk plotting, since the investigation side moves at a leisurely pace and the film lingers on surfaces, sometimes longer than its mystery deserves.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about two hours of unhurried scenes, long stretches of silence, and a lot of looking; the mood carries more weight than the plot.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Thief1981

Michael Mann's jewel-heist masterpiece with James Caan as a professional burglar trying to build a legitimate life. Shares the same cool precision, moral ambiguity, and yearning for connection beneath a perfectly groomed surface.

But Dialogue can feel stiff and mannered; some find the pacing glacial. It's less a plot engine than a mood piece about alienation.

Cruising1980

Friedkin's controversial descent into the underground gay S&M scene follows an undercover cop losing himself in his assignment. Same era, same LA underbelly, same corrosive examination of performance and identity.

But Deeply disturbing and genuinely transgressive. It's ugly, morally murky, and the controversy around its depiction of gay culture persists for reason.

Body Double1984

De Palma's erotic thriller about an actor mistaken for a gigolo who stumbles into obsession and murder. Stylistically audacious, erotically charged, and completely unpredictable in where it goes.

But The sexual content is explicit and treated as spectacle rather than intimacy. Some find the plotting contrived and the gender politics queasy.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from American Gigolo

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Late Spring1949

Both films understand that the deepest intimacy can coexist with transactional relationships, and that genuine connection often emerges despite (or through) the performance we're paid to give.

Ozu's achingly tender film about a widower and his daughter's marriage arrangements. Structurally mirrors Gigolo's quiet examination of intimacy and obligation, but filtered through Japanese restraint and domestic routine. No plot: just the weight of affection and duty.

But Ozu's style—flat compositions, still camera, rhythmic pacing—feels glacial to those expecting Western narrative momentum. It requires patience.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's rapturous film about two neighbours discovering their spouses' affair. Formally exquisite, drowning in texture and color, exploring desire through restraint and proximity rather than physicality.

But Glacially paced; the narrative is gossamer-thin. If you need plot momentum or emotional clarity, this will frustrate you.

To Live and Die in L.A.1985

William Friedkin's intense crime thriller about counterfeiters with one of cinema's greatest car chases. Captures the same morally compromised LA, the same neon-soaked surfaces hiding desperation.

But Aggressively propulsive and violent in ways that can feel arbitrary. The protagonist is genuinely difficult to root for.

Repo Man1984

Alex Cox's punk-inflected cult film about a young man recruited into repo work in LA. Same decade, same city, same portrait of characters drifting through systems that don't care about them.

But Deliberately weird and oblique; the narrative fracttures. It's more interested in tone and fragments than coherence.

Dressed to Kill1980

De Palma's Hitchcockian thriller with Michael Caine as a split-personality killer. Erotic, violent, formally playful—another 1980 meditation on performance, desire, and the violence lurking beneath surfaces.

But The sexual violence is graphic and the psychology is dubious at best. Some find it exploitative rather than exploratory.

The Long Goodbye1973

Robert Altman's deadpan reimagining of Chandler with Elliott Gould as Marlowe. Shabby LA, a protagonist too decent for his world, and a detached visual style that mirrors his alienation.

But Deliberately anti-dramatic and shapeless. If you want classical noir momentum, this subverts it into something slack and strange.

The Grifters1990

Scorsese's adaptation of Jim Thompson's con-artist novel with John Cusack as a small-time grifter caught between his mother and girlfriend. Morally tangled, visually assured, about survival through manipulation.

But Everyone in this film is compromised or exploitative. There's no moral anchor, and the ending is brutal and unsentimental.

Tokyo Story1953

Both films treat sex work not as melodrama but as labor—a way of being in the world. Both are interested in the gap between performance and authentic feeling, and both suggest that gap might be unbridgeable.

Hou Hsiao-hsien's documentary-like film about a gigolo in Taipei navigating relationships with his family while performing for clients. Shot in his signature locked-frame style, it's meditative rather than dramatic—the opposite register but identical anatomy.

But This is an extremely slow, quiet film with almost no conventional plot. Viewers expecting character drama or resolution will find it punishing.

Klute1971

Both films center sex workers as the intelligent focus of the story rather than supporting players, and both treat sex work as an extension of how people navigate power, intimacy, and the self in late capitalism.

Alan J. Pakula's thriller about a detective pursuing a killer through the world of a call girl (Jane Fonda, Oscar-winning). Genuinely unsettling psychological portrait of a woman navigating survival through sex work, with one of cinema's most unnerving final images.

But Darker and more disturbing than Gigolo, with a fatalistic view of power dynamics. The ending is bleak in ways that offer no catharsis.